AU102: All we're sayin' is give peace a chance

[Catt]

Looking back through the thread, it seems that Killerdaffy also experienced a big bad China. But no one else?

Also, I forgot to mention in my additional game notes, am I imagining it or have the tech costs from age to age changed changed pretty dramatically? Didn't notice quite the jump from ancient to middle ages, but the jump from middle ages to industrial caused a "reasearch ion 4, maybe 5 turns" to go to "research in 10, maybe 12 turns" and it wasn't a function of only devalued tech. Similar thing in industrial to modern - went from "4 turn research" to "8 turn research" and I was the clear tech leader. Perhaps could have gotten the modern back down towards 4 turns after building RLs in every city.

Once again, my games seem to end a lot later than others' games, even when ending by the same victory condition. There seemed to be pretty constant warfare in my game (not involving good ol' Hippie Sam of course ), but I'm beginning to believe that I simply don't push the tech research envelope the way other players do.

Catt

[Theseus]

Catt... hilarious!

I figured you'd come through with something 'on theme' as our N. California representative.

"... and pondered whether their entire universe could in fact be no more than an atom in the fingernail of a giant, otherworldly hippie."

LOL

[alexman]

California Catt! Wow, what a great story! You kept with the theme very well. I couldn't stop laughing out loud as I was reading it.

Our strategy was not that different, but the AI's power was very different. I'm afraid we will never get to the bottom of this puzzle. But I didn't get as many Wonders as you did, especially Ancient ones. (I focused instead on expansion and infrastructure - that, plus less World Wars are I think what made such a difference in our finish dates). Perhaps not getting early Wonders made the AI build more units, and hence be more aggressive?

The map was totally random, except for some resource re-allocation and some starting location reshufling. But I did generate at least 20 maps until I found one I liked

[alexman]

Cross-posted...

The tech rate has been slowed down. What used to cost 100 beakers now costs 100/0.8=125 on Emperor. In the ancient age you don't see the slowdown because everyone starts with different techs and trade them around.

[Theseus]

I can;t believe how much I paid Cleo for Fission towards the end: >7000 gold, a couple of luxuries, and Iron.

Just finished, diplo win, 1685AD, 3900 and change.

SAM THE MAGNIFICENT!!!!

Very funny... great job, alexman, on setting this one up.
_______________________

Further observations:

I think we're on the right track. One of the reasons I initially got interested in the killer AI civ question is that I HATE seeing the AI civs go through the settler expansion phase and then rest with static territory for the remainder of the game. Just as human players do, the AI civs should push and take advantage of relative strength when and where they can.

Well, in reviewing the thread, it seems that in every game one of the AI civs went for it.

I dunno the hows or whys, but it seems to be working. I'm fascinated by how the different games played out... I used to think that it was sort of a chaos theory effect from the human player's impact on the combat string, but obviously () not.

BTW, I've noticed that Iroquois was weak in pretty much all the games, but also seemed to scrabmble and survive in all of them too. Interesting.

On a separate note, I guess we all now know how important reputation can be...

Also, I noticed that Catt did the same as I, purposefully selling techs, resources, etc., for less than their full worth. How the heck would one learn that it's important not to drain the AI civs totally dry, if not for sites like 'poly and comparison games like we've been doing?

Very cool. Now it's back to extreme Civving, with MT V!!

[Arrian]

Catt,

China was strong in mine too. They just didn't eliminate Germany. Mao beat the crap out of Bismarck, but didn't finish him off. Great writeup, by the way!

I played a bit more "optimally" in that I did chop down forest like crazy, and my golden age occurred as a republic. That was huge, because I had gone all-out on expansion early on to grab all the land I could. I needed a lot of cash to rushbuy improvements.

It would seem that many others suffered AI sneak attacks, but mine was the most devastating - due to the use of Cavalry (3 moves).

As for the AI's performance, I don't see a whole heckulva lot of difference between standard and "killer." As usual, AI (and human) success was heavily dependent on terrain & resources.

My culture was #1, but many of the AI's were right with me. No overwhelming advantage there. Hence only 1 flip.

Wonders...

Colossus
Great Library
Hanging Gardens
Sistine Chapel
Bach
Newton
Universal Suffrage
ToE
Hoover
UN

I put a big priority on wonders that would help me. The only one I built which didn't have a positive effect was Univ. Suffrage. But it was there for the taking.

-Arrian

[Theseus]

Great GW list... I'd be envious of that in any game.

I think that really brings home a flaw in the AI... if one of us saw an AI civ that had those achievements, heck, disregarding ENTIRELY their military strength, we'd plot and plan their downfall / capture.

Much less an AI civ that had NO military... lol, can you imagine what one of us would have done in, say, Cleo's position??!!

"Abe, have you ever heard of Cavalry? Oh sure, I'll send a demo over right away!"

[Aeson]

Great history Catt!

Arrian,

I didn't think about the number of wonders I tried for, that most likely was the biggest drain on my finish date. I made a play for every single one, which really cut down on early expansion. Going for Computers and building SETI before the UN didn't help either.

Good training for the AU wonder building game though. Learned a few things, like always time 2 cities to build their wonders at once to break up spillover chains. If I had done that right, I would have gotten all but the Lighthouse I think. Built 19 (17 of them when calling the vote) wonders overall.

[Aeson]

Originally posted by Theseus
I think that really brings home a flaw in the AI... if one of us saw an AI civ that had those achievements, heck, disregarding ENTIRELY their military strength, we'd plot and plan their downfall / capture.

Much less an AI civ that had NO military... lol, can you imagine what one of us would have done in, say, Cleo's position??!!

I know. It might be hard to hold onto culturally... but no player would ever pass up such a target, regardless of how it was defended. (SETI and Wall Street are further down the list)

[Theseus]

JUICY target capture!!! Aeson, the biggest problem you're gonna have come MP, assuming you play, is that we're all coming after your GW cities!

Anyone have a clue whether SWs are captureable? (sp?) Aeson references Wall Street in the uber-Wonder city...

[Aeson]

SW's are destroyed when captured. But docking your opponent 50gpt is still a good thing!

I doubt I'd ever build a GW in MP, just been playing a lot of Monarch and Emperor games lately trying to build all the GW's without using any leaders. Usually miss out on the Oracle (and 1 or two other Ancient Wonders on Emperor) but get all the later Wonders, this was just a weird game, never been able to build the Pyramids and Oracle in the same city, they usually get built very close to each other. And then the AI's never have built up enough good production cities to compete for the Middle Age and later wonders. Might have something to do with the changed AI build preferences.

[Harovan]

Originally posted by Catt
Looking back through the thread, it seems that Killerdaffy also experienced a big bad China. But no one else?

Me, for instance. China killed me, taking out or razing half of my empire with massive landing operations. They also overtook me in the powergraph close to the end, where I was the leader for almost all of the game.

[Brinoch]

After trying the Alamo, this seemed a nice... change. Peace out brothers. And, the game started out great. No complaints at all.

I moved one space over to put the diamonds in my cultural borders quickly, and I liked the thought of the Iron Works... so I cheated a bit.

My first scout popped a settler from my first hut -- oh yeah!! This was promising. I created New York quickly to start the city building rolling. Boston and Philly came soon after that. I had another settler close to building not too long after in Boston (along the coast north of Washington).

Meanwhile, I had contact with the Iroquois and the Egyptians and a scout bottleneck in place. I guess this made the Iroquois mad or something, because he came down on me like a ton of bricks. I did nothing to upset him; in fact, I made sure all deals were better than the computer offer. And, for good measure, I tried various ploys in and around the time frame to see what would happen -- nothing. No matter what I did, Hiawatha came straight on in. I even re-negotiated peace, paying him off substantially, and he declared war. I tried to lead him with scouts, but no joy there either.

So, I did get a new treaty from him, but not until Boston and Philly were razed.

Moral of the story: don't pop a settler in the first couple of turns when you can't build military. I guess it's time to try again.

Brin

[Catt]

Re: Additional Game Notes

I only had time to post my summary and quickly scan the earlier posts (but not read them through). Good job all! And I now see that big, bad Mao made appearences in several other games (not just mine).

Originally posted by Catt
* I built up almost 2,000 gold during the GL’s effectiveness. It was painful to rush buy improvements at 8x a shield, especially since Economics (and 4x a shield) seemed so close. But I didn’t want to get caught hoarding a lot of gold. Gee, a defenseless empire that controls 4 luxuries, multiple wonders, and has 1,500 gold laying around – what would I do?

Don't know when this erroneous thinking entered my gameplay. I was tooling around the editor this morning looking for an answer I asked earlier (answer below), and confirmed that researching Economics has nothing to do with reducing shield costs in gold - it simply increases the gold produced by cities building "wealth." I had answered this very same question for myself months ago (after making the very same error), but somewhere along the line I started thinking that Econ reduces the cash "hurry method" costs - to set the record straight - it doesn't.

Originally posted by Catt
Also, I forgot to mention in my additional game notes, am I imagining it or have the tech costs from age to age changed changed pretty dramatically?

Originally posted by alexman The tech rate has been slowed down. What used to cost 100 beakers now costs 100/0.8=125 on Emperor. In the ancient age you don't see the slowdown because everyone starts with different techs and trade them around.

On the tech rate, I didn't phrase my earlier question very well to get at my point. In the 4 games under 1.29f I've played, it seems to me that the reasearch cost of the first tech available in a new age is much higher than the last tech in the previous age. I don't know if I'm imagining it or if its just a fluke of my 4 games (and my research power in them). As an example, I think I researched Magnetism as the last middle age tech in something like 6 or 7 turns, with a small surplus. Steam Power took me 11 turns (IIRC) and I had to run a deficit to do it.

I looked in the editor this morning, and I think the tech costs largely bear out what I'm seeing. The research cost for Polytheism, Currency, and Construction are 12, 16, and 20, respectively. The research costs for Monotheism, Feudalism, and Engineering are 36, 32, and 36. The jump is much more dramtic from Middle Ages to Industrial Ages - almost doubling (perhaps to the new ability to railrod and increase productivity greatly?). Metallurgy, Theory of Gravity and Magnetism are 64, 68, and 68; Nationalism, Steam Power, and Medicine are 120, 120, and 100. Interestingly, the "jump" seems to largely go away as we enter the Modern Ages - Radio is 200, Rocektry is 240, Fission 280, and Computers and Ecology each 260.

Long story short is that there is a noticebale jump from age to age through the first three ages.

Question remains: Did I just never really notice this before, or have the research costs been altered under 1.29f? Anyone notice any difference under 1.29f?

Catt

[Arrian]

Aeson,

You continue to amaze me. I pride myself on my Wonder-producing abilities. But I wonder how in the hell you built the Pyramids, Oracle and Hanging Gardens all in one city on Emperor. That boggles the mind. My Washington build the GL & HG. Now it's true that you got that early settler from a hut, but I got the 2 Iroquois workers I was able to buy.

One thing annoyed me: I made no attempt at Sun Tzu or Leo's, but I still missed Copernicus. I think that's because I wanted it in Washington and failed to prebuild it elsewhere. It would have been better to build it someplace else than to lose it to the AI. My bad there.

Catt,

I think there were some minor adjustments made by Firaxis to certain tech costs. All I know is that it's a lot harder, in general, to get your research up to 4 turns/tech.

-Arrian